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About JEDI
Originally developed in 2002 for the U.S. Department of Energy's Wind Powering America project, the Job and Economic Development Impact (JEDI) model was designed to be an easy-to-use model that analyzes the economic impacts of constructing and operating wind power plants. With its success in modeling wind development impacts at the state and local level, JEDI was expanded to analyze additional technologies and can now be used to evaluate the job and economic impacts of developing biofuel plants and solar power generating facilities as well as coal and natural gas power plants.
Here you will find more information about how the JEDI models work and what data are needed for inputs.
How the Models Work
The JEDI models run in Excel. All JEDI models apply the same basic user interface. Users download the appropriate JEDI model and then enter basic information about a project, including the state, location, year of construction, and facility size. The model then estimates the project costs (i.e., specific expenditures), and the economic impacts in terms of jobs, earnings (i.e., wages and salary), and output (i.e., value of production) resulting from the project. To the extent that a user has and can incorporate project-specific data as well as the share of spending expected to occur locally, the results are more likely to better reflect the actual impacts from the specific project.
Project Data Inputs
The project-specific data include a bill of goods (costs associated with actual construction of the facility, roads, etc., as well as equipment costs, other services, and fees required), annual operating and maintenance costs, the portion of expenditures to be spent locally, financing terms, and local tax rates. While JEDI provides reasonable default values for each of the inputs and all of those necessary for the analysis, the user has the option to indicate project specific data for the following categories of inputs:
- Construction Costs
- Equipment Costs
- Other Costs
- Annual Operating and Maintenance Costs
- Financing Parameters
In the event that project specific data is not available, the default values may be used to represent average costs and spending patterns derived from a number of sources (project-specific data contained in reports and studies) and ten years of analytical research regarding the development and costs of renewable energy resources.
However, not every project will follow this exact "default" pattern for expenditures. Project size, location, financing arrangements, and numerous site-specific factors influence the construction and operating costs. Similarly, the availability of local resources, including labor and materials, and locally manufactured power plant components can have a significant effect on the costs and the economic impacts that accrue to the state or local region. To conduct a more specific analysis, users should have project-specific values to use in place of the default values.
Download the JEDI models
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